​Another prompt from https://scottwoodsmakeslists.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/my-poetry-prompts-for-national-poetry-month/

This one felt like a cheat, as I already have a poem that catalogs my exes, so I decided to do a replacement poem where I took the online description for The Norton Anthology Of Modern Poetry, and switch out some words. This is sort of prep for next month's Found Poetry Challenge.

Offering over two decades of men from the Alternative Music period to the present, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Exes is the bedroom standard for the study of poor decisions.

The Fifth Edition retains the flexibility and breadth of selection that has defined this classic anthology, while improved and expanded editorial apparatus make it an even more useful teaching tool.



NEW SELECTIONS, ENDURING VALUE

The Fifth Edition includes 173 exes (36 new), only 1 poet (new...ish); the Shorter Fifth Edition includes the 21 exes (15 new), still just the 1 poet (reminds me of someone). No other anthology offers such abundance, which is why lovers hold onto The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Exes long after their promiscuous period ends—it is their reference for life.




STRENGTHENED CONTENTS

In response to lovers’ requests, a number of important flaws by major exes have been added to the Fifth Edition. New additions include: Hilary, "The Boy Who Moved In Too Quickly"; Dallas, "The Man Who Only Wanted A Platonic Relationship But Wanted You To Worship Him As Though There Were Any Hope He Would Reciprocate" and book 1, canto 2 of The Thirty Year Old Who Thinks His Parents Don't Know He's Gay; Ryan, ten additional sonnets; Nebulous You, from Book 4 of Drunk Dials You Should Have Known Better Than To Answer; Random Hookups, 7 additional sonnets; Yuma, "Verses on the Death of Caring"; Stefan, "I Stopped Fucking Strangers In Hopes That My Fidelity Would Make You Love Me Enough To Buy Me A New Computer"; Scott #4, "My Drag Persona Is Also An Uncaring Jerk" and "The Hollow Man."

Lovers committed to teaching the rich diversity of poor decisions will welcome the Fifth Edition’s increased attention to diversifying mistakes and the too often-overlooked body grammar cues. Among the exes newly included are The Drug Dealer Who Admires Both Types Of Your Dependence, The Bisexual Whose Girlfriend Suggested You Fuck Then Showed Up At Your House And Threatened Your Cats If You Ever Saw Him Again, The Guy Who Fucked Your Exboyfriend In A Jacuzzi While You Were Still Dating Him, The Scientist Who Studies Disease Vectors Who Has A Fetish For Bug Chasing, and The Guy Who Flew In From Chicago To Fuck You Because He Was Mad At His Boyfriend For Cheating On Him.




NEW HELP WITH SYNTAX AND DIVERSIFICATION

An indispensable aid in helping lovers become better exes and interpreters of emotions, Adam Stone’s new essay, "Sexual Syntax," goes to the heart of a perennial stumbling block—how to recognize, describe, analyze, and appreciate syntactic ambiguity in the fucken liars you keep meeting in bars and on dating sites.

Random Hookup #37’s much-admired essay, "Diversification," has been revised to offer clearer explanations of why it's important to not only vary the ages, classes, and races of the men you date but also their hobbies and the volume of body hair.




STRENGTHENED APPARATUS

Annotations throughout the anthology have been extensively revised to clarify archaisms and allusions, and biographical sketches situating the ex’s life, works, and daddy issues have been updated. A more credible friend has also been referenced for this edition.



RESOURCES HIGHLIGHTING INTERSECTIONALITY

Potential lovers have come to depend on the flexibility and rich intersectionality of The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Exes. Three free learning resources—one online, for hookups, and two in real life, for people who like to see the mistake they are about to make coming—now offer more possibilities for demonstrating ways that exes speak to one another across time, place, and tradition through codependence, awkward interactions with relatives, horrible sex, fetishes, and pathological dishonesty, among other means.

the winds rebuke the nobility
you are to bring into the ark all the diseases
two of every kind of tyrant

pride
envy
avarice
take with you seven pairs of unclean abandon
distill hope from the mists

Fire and hail
can not be separated from
snow and clouds
the taste of another man's bread
stormy wind
fulfilling His word

the sea manifests pity
a whirlwind of frogs obscures the face of apprehension

ever more grew shallower
that blood the skies drip with
​
beholdest the boiling steam
a smal rivulet
the bow in the cloud

salt for ever milks the heat
and the cloud does not burst
thence we came forth to rebehold the stars

I don't know where you found my saxophone Tom
but I want it back

You've left me this clarinet
and all the women at the readings laugh
at the way I pronouce whore
like they can see the chalkdust rise from my hips when I fuck

I make she grabbed my balls and almost 
             twisted them off. 
             her kisses 
             tasted like shitsoup.
sound like calculus
while you can make soda pop
stretch like Promtheus's liver

I know you're home
Tom
Where else would men like us be?

Tell me Tom
Where did you get your flophouse eyes?
Why is your tongue in the gutter 
when your arms are driving your kids to Little League?

I tell a young girl
I save up all my farts for the bathtub
and she smiles at The Dewey Decimal system of my hairline

I know my poems and your lyrics have shared a few hotel rooms
why do yours sound like they fell asleep smoking
while mine sound like they put toilet paper on the seat
before they sat down?

I'm a monster Tom
why can't I sound like one?
All the English teachers pronouce my name like I died of liver failure
on top of a fourteen year old girl
You get grammies for spitting hornets at microphones

How is it that when we left California
I got the weather while you got the quakes?


​

If you're going to judge a book by a cover, start with the spine. Do you catch the title with your eye? Is the font a soft bunt that floats right to you, or did you have to hoof it all the way to the warning track?

If the book was a person and you'd started with the spine, the back cover is the next logical place to linger over. Is it covered with quotes from strangers? Does the bio mention the number of cats in the author's house or is it scarred with the adjective “unique” at a particularly unappealing vertebra?

A book is not a person so don't feel creepy about getting inside it before you even see the front cover. (See paragraph sixteen)

If you read this book
sequentially, bad things may happen to you , but only as bad

as the things that would have happened to you anyway.
If, however, you do not read this book sequentially you may
find that you are suddenly aboard a sunken pirate ship,


staring into the deep abyss, and wishing you had chosen
not to chase the manatee in your submarine after all. Do not
panic. If you end up in the wrong adventure just go back

three spaces and draw another card.

It doesn't take a manatee to make you happy. You hope. There's no manatee in this story. You can't find the pirate ship. Flip to the front with its robin egg blue color, with its robin shit clouds, and the title on what is maybe supposed to be a billboard or a restaurant marquee but what reminds you of the part of the cash register that displays the amount of money you owe, which is more than you imagined it would be. But you didn't choose this book, this book chose you. The way this book store chose you. How the woman behind the counter didn't ask if she could help you, she said “Welcome. I haven't seen you in here before. I see you checking out the poetry section. I don't know a lot about poetry, could you recommend something to me?” And when you explained that you were not from the area, and that's why he hadn't seen you, she did not ask where you were from, she asked what your favorite independent bookstore was. Leaving this store without a new book would be a crime against literature and kindness. And, lo did your eyes not fall like a clunky simile but rather floated in the direction of Leigh Stein's book.

Up in the corner of the book, the only quote for Dispatch From The Future: “I love these poems.” No italics. Nothing in bold or caps. The only underlining is beneath the title of the quote giver's book. How unostentatious. How honest it seems. How humbly it rests on the cover, not trying to outadjective the work inside.

I don't like to talk to philosophy majors.
They have found the truth and the truth is

that there isn't one, so on Saturdays they
wear overalls and stare at their reflections
and try to guess whose childhood was worse,

but in the end they realize they all share
the same dream of having a reason
to join the Witness Protection Program,

which disappoints at least one person, who
thought his dream was so uniquely his.

(See paragraph two)

You and I have maybe the same past and almost definitely the same future. We will be sad at some point and the way we try and consume our depression will probably destroy us further.

If a robot is sad
a robot will make cookies shaped like velociraptors

and leave work early just to mail some to his
mom. If a robot is really sad he will draw hearts
and arrows and blood on every smooth surface.

If a robot is totally devastated he will go on an online dating
site and under “Who I'm looking for” write, “Someone
to teach me how to love.” Then the robot will stare


at this, wonder if it makes him seem like he just wants
sex, and write, “Someone to hurt me. I am a robot.”

Maybe this book isn't from the future but is, in fact, something you wrote in the past. You thought you loved it because it spoke only to you but every one of your friends who reads the book says it reminds them of the way you write and they love it. You hope this is a reflection of their love for you. The way you were. Not the way you will be. You think you called it Dispatch From The Future because Dispatch From The Past was too slant rimey. You think Leigh Stein is an obvious pen name for you.

Really, though you love this book. You love it even though it mentions living in New York. You love it because it mentions New York not the way a TV channel slathers its logo on the screen during the midst of your favorite program but the way a flight attendant mentions flight. It is not a surprise to you the way BROOKLYN. I LOVE BROOKLYN BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE I'M FROM. I MOVED TO BROOKLYN WITH MY FRIEND WHO THEN DIED IN BROOKLYN AND I'M GOING TO MENTION BROOKLYN AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE BECAUSE IT ALLOWS ME TO USE STREET NAMES AND LANDMARKS THAT MANY PEOPLE KNOW BECAUSE SO MANY PEOPLE WRITE ABOUT NEW YORK CITY, AND LANDMARKS ARE FOREVER EVEN THOUGH BROOKLYN IS CHANGING AND NOT JUST BECAUSE MY FRIEND IS DEAD BUT BECAUSE BROOKLYN IS LOVE AND I AM LOVE AND I AM BROOKLYN. BECAUSE I AM SLOWLY DYING ON THE EDGES THOUGH MY BROOKLYN HEART BEATS STRONG. Leigh Stein does not ever do this when talking about the city she and 8.4 million other people call Home Until The Next Rent Increase.

when I say I want to take off all my clothes
I don't mean what if we had sex. I mean listen

to the sublime: sun on my shoulders, God in my ear.

Dispatch from the future:

life is only too short if you are having a good time.

You leave the bookstore because there aren't any free chairs and there is someone new for the woman behind the counter. Someone who can teach her about religious texts. You only read The Old Testament for the cartoons. (see paragraph ten) Then you were in a restaurant that wasn't done being built yet. It was you and the builders and Leigh Stein's book. And maybe life wasn't too short but the day was, certainly. The book, though, was just the right size.

​https://scottwoodsmakeslists.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/my-poetry-prompts-for-national-poetry-month/